Seven Years
by public static void
Summary: Their relationship is unexpected but not unwanted. Xeno and Pandora throughout their seven years at Hogwarts.


**Written for Hogwarts' Arithmancy Class, Task #2 -** Write a story featuring 7 years of a character's/couple's life.

 **Additional prompts:** Characteristics: Perceptive, understanding, bright; Characteristics: pessimistic, sarcastic, insecure; Pairing: Pandora/Xenophilius; Object: invisible ink; Word: secrecy.

 **Word count:** 2360.

* * *

 **1st Year**

He saw her standing at the end of the line. Her eyes were bright and vivid, shining with a thirst for knowledge and need of adventure. Xeno thought her strange, with the brightness inside her bubbling to come out and yet wrapped in secrecy as if she feared to show her wit.

The Professor called his name first and he stepped forward, shaking off his own fear at the unknown.

What if the Hat sent him home? He already pictured the disappointed look in his father's eyes and the sympathetic smile of his mother.

Then, the Hat covered his eyes and it whispered into his mind.

Ha! The pessimism is strong in this one, muttered the Hat inside his head. You could be bright, young man. A novelty for the wizarding world, if you know how to behave. Slytherin would be best for you.

Xeno shook his head.

She will go to Ravenclaw. I have to be with her.

The Hat, if Hats could laugh, would have done so in that moment. Yet he said nothing more than a loud Ravenclaw!

Xeno took off the Hat and sat at the blue and bronze table, watching as the others students went by until she was called.

"Rosier, Pandora."

She never hesitated and grinned when she sat there, in front of everyone, with the Hat covering most of her face. Her legs kept swinging back and forth, and her hands were on her lap, playing with a ring or some other small object.

She was so sure of herself, so bright in the vast darkness around him, that Xeno thought she could be a Gryffindor too. Then the choice he made had been in vain.

But the Hat yelled Ravenclaw for her too and she came to sit at the same table as him.

She never spoke to him. It appeared as if her mind was too busy and too full of ideas, to speak to anyone or even to spare him a thought.

The illusion of the sky in the ceiling caught her and Xeno felt his heart melt when she looked up and smile. Her eyes, of a lovely blue colour, reflected the stars.

* * *

 **2nd Year**

Once again she is running late. Her invisible ink fell over her skirt, staining it with an imperceptible shade that Pandora knew it was there. The uncomfortable feeling only ceased when she took it off and put on a clean skirt. By then, she was twenty minutes late to Professor McGonagall's class.

She hurried down the stairs and through the halls, stopping for a few seconds to stare at the garden in the middle of Hogwarts. There were fairies playing among the roses and Pandora wished she had a camera. Faeries didn't approach human settlements unless called with the whistling of a specific tune at a certain hour, under the bright full moon. To see them there it meant something special would happen.

Silently, she said goodbye to the faeries and ran to the classroom again. She was about to reach it when she crashed against the weird boy in her year.

"Sorry!" he hurried to say, offering her a hand to help her stand up. She took it and felt butterflies –or the faeries, who knew– invading her chest. "I was going to look for you. When you didn't show I thought you were sick or something."

Pandora blushed. He was balancing on the heel of his feet and looking down, always insecure.

"You didn't have to," she told him, trying not to startle him. He always looked like a deer caught under the wand light, frozen and unable to run away. Pandora put a hand over his shoulder. "But it was sweet of you."

He blushed and opened his mouth, but said nothing.

"Let's go inside. I don't want Professor McGonagall to punish you for this," Pandora told him and smiled.

He smiled too and entered the classroom.

Throughout the day she kept waiting for the special moment the faeries promised, but it never came.

* * *

 **3rd Year**

The streets of Hogsmeade were decorated with pumpkins and skeletons. Xeno knew the one by the Three Broomsticks was a real one, but if anyone else knew they said nothing.

Still, there she was.

Her coat was too big for her and the boots she wore were too weird, with pebbles stuck to them in strange patterns. But she took Ancient Runes, so maybe those were runes and her way of staying far from crup dung.

"Hi, Xenophilius," she called and waved a hand to him. He still hadn't got her to call him Xeno. "Did you know the skeleton at the Three Broomsticks is real?"

He smiled. Of course, she would know. As she returned to staring at the skeleton –from afar, as the entrance of the place was too crowded–, Xeno thought she was too perceptive. Nothing escaped her, except for some obvious things she never considered magical enough, like the rose he got her for Valentine's Day the last term. She thought it had been fairies and called it the magical moment she had been waiting for.

"You're far away again, Xenophilius," she softly told him, calling him back to the ground and anchoring him to her. "Don't worry about me. I'll stay with you to ensure your safety while you travel through your mind."

Her smile was sweeter than her words, and how could he escape the reality in that moment when she was finally speaking to him and staying close because she wanted? It was the perfect moment, one Xeno would never forget. Her hair smelled of orange peel –maybe she had bathed in orange peel tea again, to protect herself from the invisible creatures only she could see.

"Why don't we sit inside, so you can think better?" she asked with a giggle that made him blush.

He saw the entrance to the Three Broomsticks had been vacated already. The rush hour having gone by without him noticing it.

She asked for plum tea, a weird thing she loves, and he asked for a butterbeer.

"It's kind of you to come with me," Pandora said between sips of plum tea. "Nobody likes me, so thank you for agreeing to this."

He wanted to tell her she was liked and he was the outcast. He didn't and only smiled at her.

* * *

 **4th Year**

She had friends in other Houses. There was a Gryffindor girl from another year and twins from Hufflepuff and Slytherin who liked to speak in riddles and confound her with whatever they said.

Pandora loved them all.

Yet her steps guided her to Ravenclaw's Tower's little library instead of seeking them out. The sun was up in the sky and they would surely find the lake more appealing, but Xeno never was out on days like this.

He loved the outside, but he hated people.

Pandora saw him reading a book and scribbling in a notebook. He was concentrated, with his eyes slightly narrowed and a premature wrinkle forming across his forehead as he wrote. She sat with him after waving to Da Chang.

"I thought you'd be outside," he whispered. Pandora smiled though he didn't look at her. Xenophilius had gotten better at not gawking at her.

"I thought so too, but I wanted to be with you today."

"Really?" he asked, looking up with an astounded expression.

She giggled. "It's your birthday, Xenophilius. Friends often spend birthdays together."

His face fell.

"What's wrong?" she asked, worried. "If you're worried about me telling anyone else or preparing a surprise party for you, don't be. I know you value secrecy."

He stared at her longingly.

"When I first saw you, I thought you looked like someone who held secrets for the sake of it," he told her and Pandora blushed. "But you're right. I like to keep secrets too."

She laughed before taking a wrapped box from her backpack. The wrapping paper was brown and it had small blue circles in it.

"It's a book," she informed him before he could even thank her. "Don't be disappointed. I don't have much money and this was something that reminded me of you."

He looked at her with something strange in his eyes, then he smiled and his eyes got bright. His words made her heart beat faster.

"Pandora, you could never disappoint me."

* * *

 **5th Year**

OWL year was supposed to be difficult –tiring even if one heard the stories going around– but Pandora found it perfect.

Her classmates, usually loud and boisterous, adopted calm behaviours and that gave her quiet evenings by the fire with her books at her side and Xenophilius at the other.

"Which classes will you keep?" she asked him because someone as bright as him would inevitably pass all his classes. "I plan to stick to Runes, but I don't know about Arithmancy. I'm bad at it, but it's something I really love."

"If you love it you should do it," he said, passing the page of his book and gasping at what he read. Another muggle novel, Pandora thought and smiled. Xenophilius was fond of muggle literature and she hadn't found out why. It was adorable, though, because someone as intellectually oriented as him had a soft side and it amazed her how the innocence in him was hidden to everyone else.

"What if I fail?"

He looked up and his silver eyes silenced her doubts.

"How could you ever fail, Pandora?" he said with certainty. His usual pessimism was missing.

"The same as anyone else could, I guess."

He didn't tell her another thing, but he clasped her hand and smiled at her.

She went back to her Arithmancy book after that.

"What do you want to do?" she asked after minutes of silence. Xenophilius looked at her, tilting his head to the side. "After Hogwarts."

"Write," he said. "Not for the Prophet, though. I want to write honest articles on anything. News, poetry, magizoology articles... I only want to write."

She stared at his fingers, where the usual ink stains graced his skin.

"Fitting," she decided.

When she lowered her sight to her book again, she could feel Xenophilius' eyes on her.

* * *

 **6th Year**

He had guessed right. She was his true love and the Amortentia potion's fumes were there to prove it.

He smelled the plum tea she usually drank whenever she had the chance. He could see her pale lips stained by the tea as she smiled at him, speaking his name with the harmonious voice that greeted him each day.

Then, as the spiral vapours kept going up, the orange peel made him smile. By then he could see the rest of the class was either smiling like himself or confused by the scents they perceived.

"Is it normal to not to smell anything?" Pandora asked the Professor and Xeno's smile vanished. He had read about it; if someone couldn't smell anything, it meant they hadn't found someone to love yet.

Professor Slughorn told that to Pandora, who smiled and thanked him.

Xeno kept stealing glances at her, sitting in front of him with one of the Hufflepuff boys she usually hanged around.

"See? It's perfectly normal and you're alright," she told the boy and put a hand on his shoulder.

Xeno let out a relieved sigh and smiled.

He looked down to the potion and smelled one last thing. Chocolate. That was strange because neither he or she even liked it.

"And what do you smell, Pandora?" the boy asked Pandora and she smiled.

"Books, ink, and chocolate."

"Generic Ravenclaw, then," the boy laughed.

Xeno smiled when Pandora looked back at him and grinned. "Generic Ravenclaw," she agreed and winked at Xeno.

* * *

 **7th Year**

By then, it was obvious that Xeno would be a writer. He sent letters to the Prophet with opinions and the findings of shy Ravenclaws who didn't want to venture out to the world on their own. He would contact investigators for them, and even an Unspeakable once to come and check their work while he wrote everything down to be published at a later date.

Pandora could see him writing all day. He would begin with a cup of coffee at his side, making small pauses of a few minutes to take a sip and enjoy a couple of smiles with her. Then he would continue and repeat until he finished the piece or the cup of coffee.

"I'm proud of you," she told him one day after The Prophet released his latest article on a Charm created by a muggleborn girl from Hufflepuff. He had received the issue and a small fee that he shared with the girl. "Of everything you are, really."

She felt her face on fire when he did something completely unusual and brought up a hand to her cheek.

"It means the world to hear it, Pandora," he said, smiling at her strangely. She remembered all those glances throughout the years; the words he never said were obvious now, but did she feel the same?

By the time they were done with their NEWTs at the end of the year, Pandora was sure she felt the same.

"I love you," he told her after their last exam.

They were resting in the vacated Common Room, each sitting on a couch and facing the other. The words were melodious; Pandora closed her eyes and let them replay in her mind, ripping apart the world as she knew it and forming another, better place.

"I know," was her answer to him.

He chuckled. "Of course. You're too perceptive to fool."

Pandora stood up and walked up to him, sitting down at his side.

"And you were too insecure to tell me before," Pandora said, smiling.

He blushed. "But you knew, so it didn't matter."

He was right, Pandora thought.

"Glad we understand each other, then."


End file.
